32
The Giant of Grabbist and the Stones of Battlegore
Recorded from Ruth L. Tongue, September 28, 1963, as she heard the account from Walter Badcock in Minehead. This is the end of the preceding Somerset legend.
OUR OLD GIANT and Old Nick, they did meet arter a while, on the Quantock Hills, up by West Quantock ’twas, and they was to throw their stones, and this time the giant was ready for Old Nicky, and afore ’e could do anything, giant ’ad picked up ’is stone, and throwed right over to Battlegore, six miles away. “Your turn now,” ’e say.
Old Nicky were dancing wi’ rage, and I think ’e were so cross about ’en, that ’is stone fell down, and the giant’s was the furthest off. “Now,” says the giant, “’tis your promise to go away from round here, and never come back no more. But as no one don’t trust you, I’ll make sure.” And ’e pick up Old Nicky by ’is tail, and ’e wade out down the Severn Channel, till ’e were right out to the sea, ’twere up to ’is armpits. And then ’e give ’im a good swing, three times round ’is head, and let go. Well, I reckon the Old Un landed somewhere about the West Indies; anyway, ’e get a good long swim back.
’E’s back o’ course, but ’e don’t shew ’isself in Zummerzet, ’case the giant be about.
33
St. Wulfric and the Greedy Boy
Recorded from Ruth L. Tongue, September 29, 1963, who heard the tradition as a child at Hazelbury Plucknett in Somerset.
Miss Tongue comments: “I was told this tale, which I can remember verbatim, by an old Somerset retired clergyman of 83. He told it to me every time I asked for it, which was often. I was five, and when he was five he heard it from his great-grandmother, who was over seventy when she came to see him, and she heard it from her great-grandmother. ‘When she was five?’ I asked, thrilled by this real traditional tale. ‘Very likely, my dear little trot,’ he answered. So at a rough estimate we reach back from me in 1963 to approximately 1681, before Sedgemoor.”
Prominent motifs here are Q45.1.3, “Hospitality to saint repaid”; V411.6, “Food given away by saint miraculously restored”; and Q552.3.5, “Punishment for greed.” Walter de la Mare has very well retold the theme in his notes to Come Hither (New York, 1923), p. 540.
“Teddies” are potatoes; “a dew-bit” is an early morning snack; “drashel” is threshold.
THERE WAS A poor widow with a large family and they all worked hard, even the little ones, and folk were very kind. There was always an egg or two or a sack of teddies, or a cabbage, or a bit of bacon put by to help them out. Then the farmers found work and their food for the biggest lads, and they ought to have managed, but they all went on looking so thin as a yard of pump water except Dicky—and he grew fat. One day the poor widow crept to St. Wulfric’s cell. She’d brought him a thin little flat oat loaf, made from the scrapings of the meal chest. St. Wulfric took it and the three little trots that had come with their mother burst into tears as they saw it go.
The saint looked down at their poor little pinched faces, and whispered gently, “Go down to the spring for me, and see what the birds have left me.” So off they toddled—half the size of the pail the baby was—but he would go. And back they staggered with it only half full, their poor little sticks of arms and legs couldn’t lift more. But the baby’s face was rosy with joy over a big loaf with fresh butter, and a crock of cream they’d found there.
“Now, sit down and eat them,” said the saint, “my birds must have known you were coming. But I’ve a use for your mother’s oat cake.” Down they sat in the sunshine, and down the good food went—and after that it was easy for the grateful widow to tell her troubles.
“’Tis our Dicky, zur, he do get his vittles all down to Varmer Mellish where he be bird boy, and they do give he a-plenty. But never were such a boy to eat, Missus Mellish say, and they be hearty trenchermen down there. But when he do come whoame a-night he do gollop up all in the house if I don’t stop him. Then he do sneaky round when alls asleep and there’s nought for breakfusses. And he do get his dew-bit at farm, no fear! All my others, they do bring a few bits of vittles whoame for me and they little trots, but if Dicky be about ’tis all goed down his throat while they be getting two bites in—and him so fat as a Pig!”
“Tell him I want to see him,” said the saint. So after they’d picked the saint a bunch of primroses, and he’d blessed them, she took the little trots home. They even ran a bit. Next day, a fat sulky lad came to the cell. “I want you to take any bread you see on my shelf down to your mother,” said the saint. “Be very quiet, for it is time I was at my prayers.”
Dicky glanced at the shelf and saw his mother’s oat cake. He’d searched for it all night! And she’d given it to an old man who knelt on a cold stone floor—the old fool! Here he looked at the shelf again and there were two large white cottage loaves beside the oat cake. Dicky grabbed them in terror and ran for it, scared out of his wits. He was so fat he soon lost his breath, and sat down on the turf—and the loaves smelt delicious. Nobody would know what happened to them. The silly old saint was busy praying and his mother wouldn’t expect any food. Down Dicky’s red lane went all three loaves, yes, oat cake and all, and my young raskill strolls off home. He wasn’t feeling at all happy inside and there were no end of queer pains so he didn’t go indoors but sat down on the drashel. Out came his mother smiling and handed him a big crust of white bread covered with butter.
“There, Dicky,” she said, “you shall have a taste for being such a good, kind boy, bringing in they three loaves from the saint. Lovely bread ’tis, like us ate yesteddy, I did wish you others could taste.”
But Dicky’s hair was standing on end. “T-three?” he gasped.
“A girt big oat cake and two white loaves all a-buttered,” she said, “I did find they on table where you did a-put them.”
With that Dicky took off in terror and never stopped till he got back to the saint’s cell. St. Wulfric was still kneeling, and there on the shelf above him were a poor thin little oat cake and two cottage loaves. Dicky stood there and shook with fear.
Then St. Wulfric stood up, “You must be hungry after your climb,” he said. “Finish your bread and butter.” Dicky dare not refuse, but, oh, how terrible it was. It left him with such a taste in his mouth that he didn’t eat for days—until he was as thin as the baby had been. After that he never made fun of saints or took more than his share. He even brought his mother home three eggs one evening!
34
The Devil and St. Dunstan
Collected by Ruth L. Tongue in Glastonbury, Somerset, in the summer of 1946, from an old farmer near Glastonbury. Later the same year she heard another version from a farm laborer at Street while he was taking his nummet (midday snack).
Motifs here are T332, “Man tempted by fiend in woman’s shape,” and G303.9.4.4, “Devil tempts cleric (hermit).”
Saint Dunstan (A.D. 924–88) was one of the great churchmen of the Anglo-Saxon Church. A reputation for occult powers hovered about him from the beginning of his career. When he was quite a boy and only a lay churchman he had to purge himself of an accusation of black magic by the water ordeal, which in those days was the opposite of the later swimming of a witch. When he had been converted by St. Alphege and was living a life of great austerity many tales began to be told of his personal encounters with the Devil. The Somerset tale belongs to the time when he was Abbot of Glastonbury, in the reign of King Edmund. The better known version of the story, however, belongs to the time when he was Archbishop of Canterbury and had a palace at Mayfield in Sussex. It seems to be an historical fact that St. Dunstan, as well as being skilled in music and painting, was an accomplished blacksmith. Ecclesiastically one of his great concerns was with the celibacy of the clergy, so that it is appropriate that St. Dunstan should triumph over the Devil in the form of a woman. In the Mayfield version of the story the Devil is said to have flown over to Tunbridge Wells after he had been released, where he cooled his nose in the springs, which ever after had a sulfurous taste and a reddish tinge. The tongs with which the Devil’s nose was pinched are still preserved in Mayfield Palace.
Hilaire Belloc retells a similar story pleasantly in The Four Men: A Farrago (London, 1902), pp. 31–42; the Devil fails to finish his ditch before dawn, and has his nose pinched by tongs.
THE OLD BOY were out looking for mischief when he come by Glastonbury. Says he, “I’ll have that St. Dunstan tonight, never mind how.” He’d had a two-three tries before, but he would be bound he’d get him some time. He hears a hammering in the saint’s cell, and he takes a squint in, and there’s St. Dunstan, who was a handy man with tools, amusing hisself beating out a gold chain. The Old Boy turns hisself into a beautiful young lady and come a-sidling in through door.
“Is that for me?” he says in a voice so sweet as a song thrush after rain. Now, St. Dunstan don’t like beautiful young ladies anyhow, and this one’s got a gurt ox-hoof peeping out under her frock. He don’t look up, see, but he goes on a-blowing pincers red-hot. The Old Boy, he sidles nearer, and gives him a loving look from eyes so bright as morning dew, and St. Dunstan he still goes on blowing. Then he turns round all on a sudden, and there! he’d a-got the Old Boy’s purty nose nipped atween the white-hot tongs. I reckon he kept away from Glastonbury after that.
35
St. Adelme
From John Aubrey’s manuscript on Wiltshire, Hypomnemata Antiquaria A (Bodleian MS Aubrey 3). Aubrey heard the tradition in 1645 from old Ambrose Brown at Malmesbury.
Motifs present are T540.1, “Supernatural birth of saints”; D2122.5, “Journey with magic speed by saint”; and D2072.0.2.2.1, “Person charged with keeping birds from crops confines them in barn.” E. M. Butler in The Myth of the Magus (New York, 1948), discusses spirits who perform at various speeds, including one quick as thought selected by Faust to serve a banquet, and also describes magic objects enabling Faust to fly through the air (pp. 127–40). Legends of Merlin’s miraculous birth are given on pp. 105–106.
For ringing of bells to avert thunder and lightning see Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, V, 939.
It seems that people of outstanding sanctity can not only control devils but may even employ their services without danger.
ST. ADELME, ABBOT of Malmesbury; his father was a weaver, who as he rose early to go to worke, walking over the churchyard, when he came to the crosse something frightened him still. He spoke to his wife to go along with him; she did, and when she came to the crosse she was struck at the bottome of her belly, and conceived this Saint.
Miracle. When a boy—one Sundaye as they were at Masse he filled a barn full of little birds.
This Saint gave a bell to the Abbey, which when it was rung, had the power to make the thunder and lightning cease.
